RUBBISH 03: New Zealand, the land of milk powder (offtopic rant)

No one can ever guess which country I live. Not even after I give them three very big clues.

1. In the Southern Hemisphere.2. One of the "bigger" countries down there; close to Australia.3. Starts with N.

...and I get all sorts of weird answers. And you don't know how weird (I don't even know half of them and yes, I've had "North Pole" suggested once).

It used to be a bit of a joke to see how many guesses it takes, but I'm always the one who reveals it.

New Zealand is the land of the long white cloud and supposedly a nice place to relax (but not really, after all the government is always developing the cities and it's sooooo annoying but that's another story for another day).

Anyway, this is what most people say after that, "it's the land of milk!!!"

Heh? I don't even like milk.

So it happens that I've talked to a lot of Southeast Asians and a lot of NZ milk is apparently exported there...?

So New Zealand becomes the land of the milk cows to most people.

Ok, then let's get to the point.

Why are so many Chinese trying to start up NZ milk powder business?Nah, let's start somewhere else; get back to that later.

First of all, I have nothing against the Chinese as I am Chinese myself.

Once upon a time, many Chinese went to the supermarkets to buy milk powder (particularly baby formulas). It was fairly cheap and supposedly healthy. They sent it to the relatives back in China. Why? Because NZ milk powder is a better quality.

It was all pretty well when something happened.

Someone decided to make a business out of it all.

Most NZ supermarkets realised and promptly added a restriction - I think it was 2 milk powder sacks/cans of baby formula per family per week?

It was actually pretty shocking when you realised what was going on. Family members were coming in at separate times to "trick" the supermarkets and the higher-ups of the supermarkets sometimes had to explain/deal with angry insults. It was always a shock to see a line-up of grannies buying milk powder.

It's not just Chinese people who did it, as I know some others who did it.

Such a dark story.

But now, there's no restriction! NZ government is controlling what gets sent out. =D

........and I wouldn't have told this story, until someone in my family decided to open up a "milk powder business" ( )

Actually more like a "NZ milk powder business" somewhere in China.

Because my family is the only branch of my bigger family/ies based in New Zealand, we've obviously been asked to buy some and send it to our relatives.

Nooo...I don't want to do that.........nor do I want my family to do that............

But thank you government for the controlling ! I hope the NZ milk powder business fails! Most Chinese families somehow bypass the control, but I think it'll work for the next couple of weeks (months hopefully).